Pre-law club focuses on community

The University of La Verne Pre-Law Society is using its resources to reach out to the community and hopes to mingle with students from the College of Law.

Senior communications major Christian Leon and sophomore political science major Elizabeth Younger have teamed up to form the Pre-Law Society on campus, a club they hope will gain interest of students looking in to legal affairs.

“Our vision for the club is to unite anyone in legal affairs,” said Leon, president of the club. “There are two major components, combining law and community service.”

The community service component will occur throughout the year, with the club participating in one major event each month of the semester, Leon said.

“We’re doing community service inside and outside the community,” Leon said.

Three major events the club will participate in include the AIDS Walk in Los Angeles on Oct. 14, a fundraising run held in Long Beach in November for bone marrow recipients, and a holiday event with Make-A-Wish Foundation in December.

Leon said that the plan is to participate in the events and hopefully get new members to join from there.

He said he understood that with starting a new club it is difficult to get new members, at least at first.

“It’s an opportunity for leadership,” professor of political science and club adviser Jason Neidleman said. “The club is so those students can look for opportunities to apply what they’re doing on campus out in the real world.”

The Pre-Law Society came to be a club after Leon and Younger met and shared a common idea for creating a club dealing with legal affairs.

“Every year people are interested, I encourage them to start the Pre-Law Society,” Neidleman said.

“Some years people take me up on it, other years (students) don’t,” Neidleman said. “We’ll see how far we can get this year.”

Neidleman said he has been an advisor for a decade and usually stays hands-off from the club to allow students to take control of what they would like to do with the club.

Younger, vice president of the Pre-Law Society, said she had started a similar club last semester.

“I met Christian and we renamed it, restructured it, and wrote up the constitution,” Younger said.

“I’m going to law school next fall so I decided to start it,” Leon said.

Some of the ideas for the club to get in touch with legal affairs include community service, inviting attorneys to speak, and helping prepare for the LSAT’s.

Leon hopes that the club will also bring shared interest between law students on campus and students from the University’s College of Law.

“We don’t have a club for legal affairs on campus, so I wanted to get it incorporated with ours,” Leon said.

“It’s going to be a fun club and open to all students,” Younger said. “I hope people participate.”

The club will have its meet-and-greet event on Oct. 4 and will try to meet every two weeks thereafter.